Martinique is the only Caribbean island to celebrate Ash Wednesday. All the other places stop at Fat Tuesday. Ash Wednesday, it turns out, is used to celebrate the burning of Vaval, a pagan tradition. The priests used to stand outside the church in Fort de France with a few Foreign Legionaires; the priests would sic the Legionaires on paraders to beat the crap out of them in a most disapproving way. I'm not sure why this photo reminds me of this story.

A traditional costume with gold shoes. (Although this is not a traditional madras pattern because it's in black and white, madras is widely adopted on Martinique. After slavery was truly abolished, European islanders imported indentured servants and bondsmen from India and other places; the Indians brought with them their fabrics, and the African descendants adopted it and made it their own. Martinique is truly a melting pot.)